


cherries

by brandywine421



Series: Unfinished AUs of Flail (aka fail) [21]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Post-Episode: s01e08 The Defenders, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, War Veteran Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 20:12:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17230469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandywine421/pseuds/brandywine421
Summary: "If I'd wanted him to come 'home' with me, I would've settled in Brooklyn where his family is. I burned out, not him," Steve says."We miss you," Natasha replies, folding the napkin over her plate and snatching one of his hands to pin between hers. "Tell me you're okay here.""I'm okay. I still can't sleep. I still can't tell the therapist what she wants to hear. I still can't deal with the sound of an electric razor. I'm okay, but I'm not - what do you want me to say?" he whispers."I want you to say that you're better here than you were when you left HQ.""I need to know who I am outside of uniform," he sighs. "I'm never going to figure that out at HQ. I put flowers on my Ma's grave twice a week, I volunteer at the orphanage where I grew up and I go to Mass. I think I might be ready to give confession soon without cursing God. That's better, right?""I don't know, that's a whole lot of religion for me to report back on," she replies.





	cherries

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic I started and ♥ and haven't finished. Posting to clean up my hard drive for 2019. I'm obsessed with the idea that Cap and Matt would be BFF Irish Catholic bros forever.

_everything is cherries on top_

 

 

  
"Excuse me, is that Matt Murdock?" he asks over the dull drone of the filling bar. The bartender doesn't seem to hear him but the guy holding out his credit card does.

The guy gives him a curious look and his hair bounces appreciatively. "Guess that depends on who's asking."

Habits raise his arm to declare a pass on the banter with his beer. He isn't dropping his name tonight. It was a mistake to engage.

"Come on, I can't exactly describe you to him, I need to give him a name if you want an introduction," the guy grins, snooping now. Steve definitely isn't ready to engage.

"I knew him a long time ago, just nice to see him still kicking around. No names necessary," he adds, tossing a twenty on the bar and shifting to his feet.

He wouldn't come back to this bar for a few days. He can drink at home now that he has one.

He doesn't want to think it's a sign that Murdock's the first familiar face he's seen since he moved back. They didn't know each other before anyway.

 

* * *

 

"If I'd wanted him to come 'home' with me, I would've settled in Brooklyn where his family is. I burned out, not him," Steve says.

"We miss you," Natasha replies, folding the napkin over her plate and snatching one of his hands to pin between hers. "Tell me you're okay here."

"I'm okay. I still can't sleep. I still can't tell the therapist what she wants to hear. I still can't deal with the sound of an electric razor. I'm okay, but I'm not - what do you want me to say?" he whispers.

"I want you to say that you're better here than you were when you left HQ."

"I need to know who I am outside of uniform," he sighs. "I'm never going to figure that out at HQ. I put flowers on my Ma's grave twice a week, I volunteer at the orphanage where I grew up and I go to Mass. I think I might be ready to give confession soon without cursing God. That's better, right?"

"I don't know, that's a whole lot of religion for me to report back on," she replies.

"I haven't gone to the VA yet. My shrink put in an application for a support animal, maybe a dog or a horse."

"A horse?"

"I don't get it either, the pet deposit would be outrageous."

 

* * *

 

She goes with him to his mother's grave. She stocks his fridge and pantry like she's setting up a safehouse. She buys him a razor and overpriced beauty supplies and makes him use it in front of her. She sits with him at Mass and glares at anyone that looks at him too long.

"I can't believe you do that once a week voluntarily," she mutters on their way down the stairs. She offers him a thin cigarette when they're off to side and he takes it for solidarity's sake. "Now, which one of these nuns is the one that gives you nightmares, I need a frame of reference."

"Sister Agatha. She doesn't recognize me, but she's still terrifying. She doesn't use the ruler anymore, they have time-out," Steve smiles, nodding toward the ancient Sister that ran the orphanage. They swapped a lot of stories on stakeouts and Natasha never forgot anything.

"You're right. She looks terrifying," Natasha says seriously. "All four feet of her."

"I think it's good for me to face it, you know? Ma wanted me to be an artist, or a musician," Steve shrugs. "Once I ended up here, there was no time for that."

"Have you run into anyone you knew?" she asks.

"Nobody knew me. There was no time for that, either," he replies, turning her away from the crowd. "I'm going to take you out to a four-star restaurant for lunch in gratitude for your sacrifice."

"And a bribe to keep me from telling everyone you're floundering," Natasha smirks.

"I made reservations." He's going to miss the shit out of her.

 

* * *

 

"We gotta talk about him, Cap," Natasha says, sitting on her suitcase and man-spreading as she leans forward to hold his gaze.

"I'm going to tell you the truth and you can compare it to whatever he told you," Steve cuts her off before she can start her interrogation. He owes her for putting it off until her last hours here.

"I love him, but I can't do the work anymore. I can't, Nat - there's more blood on my hands than under my skin," he mutters. "He doesn't understand that - I don't want him to ever feel this way. I needed to leave the job but I didn't intend to leave him, too. He doesn't want long distance and I can't offer him anything more. It was a personal decision that turned into a mutual breakup and the fact you turned up first and he hasn't even called yet tells me everything I need to know right now."

She deflates. "It pisses me off that he won't give it a shot."

"We're testing it out for six months. I've only been out of uniform for one - everyone has to give me six months before making any calls. Holding pattern."

"Fine. Is there anything I can tell him?" she asks, relaxing from her 'tell me everything or die' posture and embracing him like his friend.

"If he wants to email, or write, or call - I'd like to talk to him. I'd like to know I'm still his friend before the six months goes by and he forgets me," Steve says.

"Off the record, he's miserable as fuck but he's within my reach so it's fine. I'll see you in three months and I'll call you in sixteen hours."

"Negative. You call me as soon as you land," Steve corrects, kissing her chastely and hoping he has settled her worries for the immediate future so he can get back to moping.

 

* * *

 

"You're back, Josie thought I scared you off," the floppy haired guy says, leaning on the bar when he ventures out on his own after firing his therapist.

"You're not scary," Steve shrugs. "I'm just not good with people right now."

"Thank you for your service," the man says with a nod to his dog tags. He tucks them in and taps for a refill on his whiskey.

"I'm Foggy Nelson and if you're new around the Kitchen then maybe you'll see me around."

Steve makes a mental note. "Lawyer, right? Hopefully I won't need your services."

"Matt says he thinks he went to school with you. Did you grow up here?"

He glances around the sparsely filled bar. "You sure have a lot of questions. I'm not drunk enough yet to blow you in the bathroom so what are you fishing for?"

The guy slumps slightly. "I know everyone around here but I don't know you. But now I feel like I should buy you all the drinks if that other thing is an option."

"I was sick a lot when we moved here, I didn't go to school until after my Mom passed. I didn't know Murdock, he was just the blind kid three beds down in the orphanage."

"Oh," Foggy says.

"I saw his dad box a few times," Steve confides. "Never got the balls to ask him about it, considering the circumstances."

"Shit, really?"

He remembers his mother's bright smile as she cheered. "I think my mom had a crush on him. Hadn't thought about it in years and then I see Murdock one of my first nights back."

"What brought you back?" Foggy asks, softer now that it's not the fluffy gossip he wanted.

"I don't have anyone else. My ex has family in Brooklyn and I've got a cousin out in Queens I've never met. Ma's dead, but she's here so I'm here. Trying to get used to the world again."

"Then let me be one of the first to welcome you home."

 

* * *

 

  
"I fired my shrink. Fuck that guy."

Bucky sighs in his ear but he can't make out the emotion behind it.

"Are you disappointed in me?"

_"Fuck no. I didn't realize you were seeing a shrink."_

"I'm not spilling my guts to a priest but I can lie to a shrink. Fuck him"

_"I miss you so goddamn much."_

"Me, too. But."

_"Yeah. I couldn't be with you right now without being with you. What are you doing?"_

"Trying to get drunk enough to blow this lawyer."

_"You hate lawyers."_

"I know. It's a bad day. But I'm not drinking alone at home or shopping for dogs on Amazon."

_"What can I do? As a friend. Want to talk about sports?"_

"I don't know shit about sports, you have to give me warning if I need to learn stuff." Bucky chuckles and Steve hates how he immediately feels better. "Give me a pep talk."

_"What did the shrink say that set you off?"_

"I don't want to talk about it."

_"Fair enough. Listen. You're gorgeous and kind and smart. Stubborn as fuck and depressed, maybe, but I've never seen anything keep you down for long. Fuck that guy, Steve. Please don't start blowing strangers because some asshole hurt your feelings."_

"I'm glad you called."

_"Me, too. Let's learn about NASCAR just in case we need sports next time I call."_

"Cars, okay. On it."

 

* * *

 

"I've been told to make friends with you by three different people this week. No jogging today," Murdock greets him on the stoop of his apartment building.

"I don't jog, I run. I fired the last person that told me to make friends," Steve says blankly.

"I'm already unemployed so I don't care if you fire me. Let's take a walk, I know a place you might appreciate more than everyone else."

Steve considers running in the opposite direction but ditching a blind guy won't be his finest moment. "Who's shopping me around for friends?"

"Foggy's a gossip, Karen wants your number and Father Lantom wants me to vouch for him so you'll seek his counsel. He says you're avoiding him." Matt tilts his head. "Are you going to fire him?"

"If he keeps rushing me, maybe. I'm working up to it. Where are you taking me?" Steve asks, feeling a little out of sorts following a blind man.

Murdock hesitates at the corner. "Nobody knows your name but Foggy said you and I might have some shared history. Fogwell's is the gym my old man used and you seem like you might need a place to punch things."

"Wait. I thought you were a lawyer, why are you unemployed?"

Murdock smirks. "What's your name, Stranger Danger?"

"Steve," he commits and Murdock flinches. Huh.

"Huh. I was about to say you were smaller, but that was over 15 years ago so that's expected," he says.

"True. I was in the service. Foggy tell you that part, too?" Steve asks.

"No, Father Lantom says you have military posture, I pegged you for a cop or agent. You try very hard to make yourself invisible but you've always done that. It's a small fucking world, isn't it? Should be up here on the left."

A gym membership is probably on one of his 'self-care checklists' but he thinks running twenty miles a day is a fair trade. But the stale musty air from the old-fashioned gym isn't what he expects.

"Matty - still riding the bench for that Fatty Nelson kid?" an older man calls from across the bar where he's lazily watching two scarred up men spot each other on the weights.

"I'm going to tell him you called him that," Matt fires back. "You got a second to meet someone?"

Steve feels ambushed but nods to the hunched old man when he approaches. He's taken a lot of hits to the face over a lot of years.

"This is Steve, he said his mom used to bring him to see Dad fight," Matt says as easily as dropping a bomb with a mouse-click. He's vetting his story.

Fuck this guy.

"Sal Hawkins? It's an honor to meet you, Sir," Steve greets him now that he's placed a name. He'd been a promoter and had always been kind to his Mom.

"Little Stevie Rogers, look at you! Sarah would be so proud, kid wait - are you juicing?" the old man narrows his eyes into slits on his rumpled face.

"No, sir, ten years in the service put some muscle on my bones. I told Matthew's friend that I saw his father fight a few times and I don't think he believed me," Steve says now that the suspicious blind asshole can't call him a liar.

"Sarah knew Jack, he got her out of a couple of bad spots - and vice versa," Sal chuckles.

"I figured he was a friend of my real dad's," Steve admits.

Matt's listening but he decides to speak so Steve has a reminder to still dislike him. "Rogers wasn't your dad's name?"

"Nah, his Ma was married to a soldier, I always figured Jodie knocked her up," Sal says with a wink or a twitch.

"She had really bad taste in men, but I don't remember a Jodie. We moved to the Kitchen when she broke up with a guy named Harold. He put her in the hospital," Steve replies. He stopped having questions about his real father before his mom passed on. "Mr. Murdock got her work helping out at the fights until she got a steady nursing job."

"You're the spitting image of your Ma, but you don't want none of Jodie's blood. God rest his soul," Sal adds. "You box?"

"No, sir," Steve replies. "I do mixed martial arts, but boxing's never been my thing."

"Jodie was my dad's brother," Matt says.

He glares at the guy before he remembers that Matt won't be able to absorb the vitriol intended. "It's good to see you, Sal, I'll have to find my way back when I have some time to catch up," he says, shaking his hand firmly. "I have an appointment to get to."

"Don't be a stranger, Rogers!" Sal calls after him. Matt follows him a few steps but Steve isn't giving the asshole any more free information.

"You're off the hook, Murdock. I don't need friends like you so your priest, your friend and your girl can all go to hell," he says when the door's closed behind them.

"Wait - "

"There are a lot of other lies you could've caught me in. Fuck off," Steve snaps.

He needs to run, not make friends. This isn't home, this is never going to be home.

 

* * *

 

  
"Want to tell me why someone's running your DNA?"

"Because my life sucks," Steve sighs. "That didn't take long. I might have a new cousin, or something."

"Something. I deleted everything, had to destroy a whole fridge full of samples to cover it up but - tell your cousin, Daredevil, that if he wants to keep his identity off the record he needs to avoid sending samples for public DNA testing," Natasha snorts.

Steve laughs out loud. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. I don't have a name but it's good to know he's not dead."

"Nobody else caught it?" he asks.

"I'm not letting anyone else get the scoop on this, I want a meet and greet without having to bring work into it."

"Fair enough. Did you send a C&D yet?"

"It's your call. We can raid his house and threaten the shit out of him, destroy his credit, build him a criminal history or kill him - sorry, Boss says we can't kill him but - "

"Send me the legal paperwork, I'll handle it," Steve says. "My life sucks, Natasha."

"What are you going to do about it?"

He considers the question a moment too long and hears her worry in the silence. "I'm going to go to the pet store and get dog stuff. I think I'll sleep better if I have someone to keep my feet warm."

"You could buy more socks, but if a dog will help your life suck less, shower, exfoliate and go now. The paperwork will be waiting for you when you get back."

 

* * *

 

"Got the results you asked for. I know why my sample was flagged by the NSA, but I didn't expect yours to ping my team's radar," Steve says, tossing the file - complete with Braille copies - on the table.

"What are you talking about?" Matt asks slowly.

"Daredevil's never been picked up by law enforcement but we've got his DNA on record. Jones didn't submit your name, or mine, to be fair - but because your request pinged my clearance level, now they know he's someone that knows me."

He has a twinge of regret from Murdock's blanched fear. "You suck at making friends more than I do and I'm shit at it," he says finally. "We have an old video of you fighting in a hallway from about five years back and we use it in training for close-quarters combat - my ex-CO has been trying to tag you for recruitment long before Midland Circle."

Matt shudders. "Jesus Christ, who are you?"

"I'm a retired soldier trying to find a life without a shield on my back," Steve replies, giving the statement a moment to land. "I don't want any drama, I don't want to fight - "

Matt takes his sunglasses off and covers his face with his hand. "I thought - I don't remember you. I heard you asking Foggy about me, I heard you talking to your friend outside the church - I don't remember you at all. And then Sal says - I don't know what you want from me, why you're here."

Steve huffs. "I wanted to be close to my Ma. I'm out of the business and I definitely didn't choose Hell's Kitchen because of you, in a mask or not."

"I swear I didn't know you were - I thought you were sent by one of my enemies. I - my life's a mess right now and you just pop into town saying you know me - "

He has a rush instead of a twinge of regret at the tone in his voice. The guy's just trying to cover his own ass. "We spoke once, at Saint Agnes'. It was probably one of my first few days there and the Russell twins had written all over your books in red marker. I cleaned it off because, well, I gave a fuck, but you came in with the Sisters and it was all over my hands." Matt frowns sharply at the memory of the Russell twins so he goes on. "They had me scrubbing bathrooms for months."

"Shit. I remember that - I told you that I knew you didn't do it but I couldn't speak up without making it worse for both of us," Matt sighs.

"And that snitches get stitches," Steve adds. "Which is advice I follow to this day."

Matt chokes out a panic-laced laugh.

"I'm not out to get you. My life happens to be a mess right now, too, so running my DNA put you on my shit list as much as mentioning your name without cause put me on yours. Considering our sensitive 'work histories', can we scratch it up to warranted paranoia and move on with our lives?"

"Just like that?"

"There's an NDA behind the cease and desist order," Steve shrugs. "Stop snooping around my business and I'll stay out of yours."

"Who else knows? Who ran the samples?" Matt asks.

"Natasha knows Daredevil's my cousin, the lab facility's records were wiped as soon as my profile pinged her radar. She doesn't have your name and I doubt she'd recognize you out of uniform." Steve hesitates. "You're not at the top of your game, are you?"

Matt snorts, deflating. "I'm not back on the streets yet. Medical clearance shouldn't be a thing but I promised Foggy."

"If it helps, my previous employers think you're dead. They caught up with your ex, she's chaotic neutral on Nat's chart, I think, and she confirmed you died at Midland Circle," Steve shrugs. "They keep tabs on everything, especially averted apocalypses they didn't know about."

"That's not comforting. But - I give you my word that nobody will hear about you from me."

"Likewise," Steve says, holding out his hand to seal it with a handshake. For a blind man, he finds it without hesitation.

"Elektra, she's okay? I haven't heard from her since, everything," Matt asks, keeping his voice low enough to hide the cracks.

"Oh wow, I have no idea, that lady scares the hell out of me," Steve replies honestly. "Nat handles the meet and greets, you know, 'we're passing through your territory, please don't throw knives at us' and all that. Hell, if she hadn't marked you as dead, she probably would have tried to warn you about me. She told that kid with the weird hand."

"Danny?" Matt perks up.

"I guess, she didn't like him much but she told me to call his girlfriend when I wanted to start training again. I didn't think my reintegration into civilian society would take this long, though, so I haven't gotten that far," Steve admits.

"Why did you retire? We're the same age, what - " Matt bites off the rest of his question.

"It's complicated."

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyric tag belong to Panic! at the Disco. I legit have no memory of why.


End file.
